Fears of a Russian military intervention in Ukraine deepened further on Friday as clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces escalated, described by the US as a ‘cynical’ move to ‘attack’ Russia .
Pro-Russian secessionist authorities in eastern Ukraine ordered the evacuation of civilians to Russia.
“It is cynical and cruel to use human beings as pawns to distract the world from the fact that Russia is building up troops for attack,” a State Department spokesperson said. American.
After two days of clashes, the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, denounced the implementation of a “scenario” of “provocations” designed by the Russians in order to justify an offensive.
A US official estimated on Friday that Russia had 190,000 troops on the outskirts of Ukraine and on its territory, including separatist forces. So far, Washington was talking about more than 150,000 troops at the country’s borders.
It is “the largest concentration of military troops” since the Cold War, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, judging that Moscow was “able, without further warning, to attack” the neighboring country.
United States President Joe Biden joins leaders of several European countries and NATO on Friday for a virtual meeting and is due to speak around 4 p.m.
His Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, accused Kiev of fueling the conflict and noted a “worsening of the situation in the Donbass”, a region where the Ukrainian army has been fighting pro-Russian forces supported by Moscow for eight years.
“All Kiev has to do is sit down at the negotiating table with the representatives (of the separatists) of Donbass and come to an agreement,” he said, receiving his counterpart from Belarus and ally , Alexander Lukashenko.
Take up arms
Throughout the day, the belligerents accused each other of violating a truce and using heavy weapons.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who had attempted mediation in early February, called for the “cessation of military acts”, noting that “Russian military pressure is not weakening”.
The West unanimously promised Moscow devastating economic sanctions in the event of an invasion of Ukraine. They would make Russia a “pariah”, hammered an American official on Friday.
But Vladimir Putin again swept aside the threat: “The sanctions will be introduced no matter what. Whether there is a reason or not, they will find one, because their aim is to hinder the development of Russia”.
In the afternoon, shelling was still heard in Stanitsa Luganska, a city under Ukrainian control, according to AFP journalists. She had already been targeted the day before by shots which notably hit a nursery school.
The separatist leader of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, for his part announced an evacuation of civilians to Russia, “primarily women, children and the elderly”.
His counterpart from the neighboring “republic” of Lugansk, Leonid Passetchnik, did the same before calling “all men capable of holding a weapon to defend their homeland”.
And the Russian president ordered the payment of 10,000 rubles (about 165 Canadian dollars) to each person leaving these areas. Russian television channels showed images of evacuations of children gathered in the courtyard of their orphanage.
As tensions rise on the ground, Russia again claimed on Friday to withdraw military units from the outskirts of Ukraine, without however convincing its opponents.
“That is not happening,” replied Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov before the deputies.
US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin even claimed that the Russian army was sending “more forces” and preparing for an intervention “by moving closer to the border, positioning troops, increasing their logistical capabilities”.
According to Washington, Russia is looking for a pretext to attack Ukraine and a resurgence of violence in the Donbass could be one of them, Moscow seeing itself as the defender of the Russian-speaking populations of the region, especially since it has distributed passports there Russians to the people.
14,000 dead
Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported a significant increase in shootings, with 189 violations of the ceasefire in the Donetsk region on Thursday, against 24 on Wednesday. In the Lugansk region, 402 violations were reported against 129.
But neither side reported deaths. This conflict has claimed more than 14,000 lives since 2014.
The head of Russian diplomacy, Sergey Lavrov, accused the OSCE of bias, accusing it of “mitigating the points which show the guilt of the Ukrainian armed forces”.
The peace agreements signed in 2015 in Minsk had enabled the establishment of a ceasefire and a considerable drop in clashes, but violence still erupts regularly.
Russia denies any plan of invasion but demands guarantees for its security, such as the withdrawal of NATO from Eastern Europe, all demands rejected by the West.
At the same time, Washington accused Moscow of being “responsible” for the latest cyberattacks that targeted official Ukrainian websites this week, despite the Kremlin’s denials.